Mirror - Vol. 38, No. 20 - March 27, 2013

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THE MIRROR Student-run newspaper Week of March 27,2013 Vol. 38, Iss. 20
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The Fairfield Mirror
Students never make it halfway there
By Dylan Dembin
Vine Editor
You can't catch the boat if
you can't catch the bus. Unfor-tunately,
this was the case last
Saturday, March 23, as mem-bers
of the sophomore class
dressed in semi-formal attire
and waited for the bus to drive
them to their Halfway There
Cruise that never came.
Each year, sophomores
are given the chance to embark
on an evening of fun and cel-ebration
at the cost of $50 per
ticket, which covers dinner
and transportation. However,
this year the cruise did not
happen due to an issue with
bus scheduling.
The buses were supposed
to take Fairfield students to
New York City, where they
would take a ride around Man-hattan
on a cruise ship.
Kuo explained there was a
miscommunication in the con-firmation
of the reservation
between the office of confer-ence
& event management and
FUSA. "Both of them thought
that the reservation was made
but it was never confirmed by
Academy Bus Company," Kuo
said.
Students who waited for
the bus in Alumni Hall were
upset about the cancellation
of plans. Some even began to
chant, "Move that bus!"
However, Fred J. Kuo, di-rector
of the office of student
involvement, tried to keep
things from getting out of
hand by calming the crowd and
sympathizing with students.
He informed them about what
was going on as he became
aware of it.
"Myself and the students
had a reservation for the bus
on Saturday. It was supposed to
arrive at 4:30, so right around
4:30 when the bus didn't show
up was when we got a little
concerned," said Kuo.
He said he then checked
with the bus company and they
said they did not have any res-ervation
to arrive at Fairfield.
"I'm still in meetings right
now to figure out where the er-ror
was," Kuo said. "Was it on
our end, meaning [the] insti-tution,
or was it on Academy's
end? I'm not sure what the
answer is just yet." He hopes
FUSA will put a statement
out to the sophomore class
in terms of a follow-up with
hopes to reschedule.
Currently, the class of
2015 Programmers, Thomas
Kenney and Andrea Butler are
looking at the event calendar
and working with the cruise
company in an attempt to re-schedule
the event.
Unfortunately, it is predicted
that the University will suffer
some sort of financial loss.
Kuo revealed on Tues-day
the incident will cost the
school a total of $2,000. "We
lucked out that the cruise com-pany
hadn't prepped most of
the food as we notified them
when we had the issue," Kuo
said.
It is still uncertain if the
cruise company will offset any
of these charges.
Although a decision to re-schedule
will not be made any
sooner than after Easter break,
Kuo stresses that students save
their tickets because they will
either be able to redeem them
for the rescheduled cruise or
refund them, if they cannot
attend the rescheduled date.
FUSA will also allow students
who purchased cruise tickets
to redeem them for free tickets
to Dogwoods Dance on April
13.
BUS I PAGE 2
Contributed photo
FUSA plans to return Dogwoods to its original glory. This year's spring dance will not conflict with Clam Jam.
FUSA to redeem Dogwoods tradition
By Salvatore Trifilio
News Editor
The Fairfield University
Student Association is looking
to revive a decades-old Fair-field
tradition by making this
year's Dogwoods Dance one
for the books.
In years past the event
suffered low attendance levels
due to a scheduling conflict
with Clam Jam, according to
FUSA President Rob Vogel '13.
This year, Vogel made sure that
the date was moved from April
27 to April 13, a week before
Around the World and the se-nior
mock wedding.
"For the past two years
it's been on the night of Clam
Jam," Vogel said. "We worked
hard this year to move it to a
different night and to get the
administration to approve us
moving to a different night."
In recent years Fairfield
scheduled the event on the
night of Clam Jam as a way to
deter students from attending
the non-sanctioned, off-cam-pus
beach party, according to
Vogel. However, he said that
moving the event this year was
relatively easy.
"We were putting [in] way
too much effort financially and
other resources into an event
that we knew students weren't
getting what we want out of
it," said Vogel. FUSA believed
that it was a waste of resources
to schedule an event when stu-dents
would chose Clam Jam
instead; moving the date was a
logical decision.
FUSA utilized social me-dia
to tease this year's dance
by posting a video for "Dog-woods
'13 Fire and Ice" on the
Facebook group of each class,
with a tailored message to each
grade.
They wanted to market
the event to seniors as another
Fairfield staple before com-mencement,
to juniors and
sophomores as a "President's
Ball part 2" and to freshmen
as a part of Fairfield tradition
that they had never heard of
before.
Freshman Katie Sirna,
who saw the post in her class'
Facebook group, said the teas-er
sold her on Dogwoods '13.
"I didn't hear about it at
all, then I watched the video
and thought it was cool," said
DANCE | PAGE 4
Social media
leads to eyent
cancellation
By Luigi DiMeglio
Managing Editor
Athlete suspensions and the
preemptive disbanding of a large
outdoor party stained last weekend
after would-be hosts pitched the
event on Facebook to be a drunken
orgy.
The office of residence life ap-proved
what was originally slated
to be an afternoon of outdoor
dancing in the lawn between Stu-dent
Townhouse Complex blocks
8,9 and 10.
However, a "degrading" Face-book
event page appeared within 24
hours of the approval according to
Dean of Students Karen Donohue
'03. Students administrating the
event proposed it to ResLife with
the name "Fairfield Ultra" - a
spinoff of the annual international
event (Ultra Music Festival) known
for crowds of young people and
hours of electronic disc jockeying.
The Facebook event page, ti-tled
"FUltra Townhouse F*ckfest,"
had a detailed description stating,
"... DJ Lou [will] be setting up his
strip poles and boombox on the
grass for us to get inebriated and
bang everything that has two legs
and a heartbeat," among other
things.
For Donoghue, "whether it
was a joke or not, it was extremely
disappointing ... This turned from
an organized event to an undercov-er
orgy, you could argue."
Three students were adminis-trators
of the Facebook event page
and were asked by the dean of stu-dents'
office to delete it and cancel
the event. The students complied.
The dean's office would not discuss
any other sanctions that may have
been imposed on the students for
the offensive event description.
Donoghue said that all action
taken in her office is done indepen-dently
from the athletic depart-ment,
though the two departments
keep in communication. On athlet-ics,
"They have their own standards
... I uphold to the [Student Hand-book]
and I treat all the same."
The dean's office was informed
PARTY I PAGE 4
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